INKPOT#105: RESPIGHI Concerto in modo misolido. Concerto a cinque. Scherbakov/Various (Naxos)
Concerto in modo misolido*
Concerto a cinque*Konstantin Scherbakov piano
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava)
conducted by Howard Griffiths*
Igor Fábera oboe · Juraj Bartos trumpet ·
Jarolím Ruzicka violin · Radoslav Sasina double bass
Capella Istropolitana
conducted by Ewald Daniel*
NAXOS 8.553366
[61:02] budget-price
by Benjamin Chee
Respighi the Polymath
Ottorino Respighi was not just a composer. He was an excellent violinist and violist – it was the latter, in fact, which led him to St Petersburg as principal violist in the Russian Imperial Orchestra between 1900 and 1901 (and the start of his unofficial apprenticeship to Rimsky-Korsakov.) He received his diploma in composition upon his return to Bologna after 1903.
But before that, he had attended the Liceo Musicale in Bologna, his native city, under the celebrated pedagogue Giuseppe Martucci. He also went to lectures conducted by Max Bruch, although that did not come to anything. As a teacher himself, Respighi took up a professorial position at the Liceo di Santa Cecilia in Rome, becoming director of the conservatory nine years later.
The Concerto in modo misolido was premiered on New Year’s Eve 1925, at Carnegie Hall, New York under Willem Mengelberg with the composer himself on the soloist’s part. Respighi himself claimed that the solo part was written with himself and his own technique in mind – not a small feat considering his primary instruments by training and profession were the violin and the viola.
Undertaking concert tours throughout Europe and USA, he consolidated his position as a major composer of his time with his Roman trilogy and adaptations of the Ancient Airs and Dances. He also pursued a successful career as solo violist and violinist, as well as conductor, well into his maturity. He finally gave up the concert platform in 1908 in favour of teaching and composition – he resigned his teaching position in 1926 to devote himself fully to composition – not that he ever lacked champions in this respect.
Heifetz and Toscanini were enthusiastic advocates of his music, but strangely enough, today the music of Respighi is seldom performed or recorded. There are occasional revivals, but even these have failed to establish him firmly in the repertory: Respighi remains on the fringe, with his mix of Russian colour, French impressionism and German symphonic tradition in an Italian school which focused on opera and church music.
One could say that his tone poems and orchestrations have been fatal: stigmatizing him as a symphonic poet on the lines of Richard Strauss to the exclusion of his other achievements, including that of a master orchestrator. In reality, his style is uniquely his own, traceable to other national schools or into the distant past of his own native culture, but not one which comfortably fits into a pigeonhole.
Ottorino “Roman Fountains and Festivals” Respighi, the writer and performer of piano concertos ? Well, perhaps, those who don’t know Respighi outside his Roman trilogy and medieval musical arrangements would be surprised to hear that the feisty Italian composer did produce a handful (quite literally – five) of concertos, not to mention a copious amount of chamber, piano and vocal music, as well as ten operas (he wrote nine and left one incomplete at the time of his death).
It has been suggested that the neglect of Respighi’s concertos has been inherently caused by himself: his moods, colours and textures, however brilliantly contrived, tend to fall over each other without really forming up to any satisfactory musical architecture. In a dramatic form as disciplined as the classical-romantic concerto, the intercourse of cause and effect between soloist and ensemble, the lack of a structure could be a critical flaw.
Ironically, he was the most celebrated Italian composer of his time, more so than modern audiences recognize nowadays. Despite championing by luminaries such as Toscanini and Heifetz – there was no orchestra under them which did not have Respighi (above) in its repertoire – perhaps it is Respighi’s early eclectism of styles which contributed to the near-total neglect of his concertos.
Respighi also had a fascination with medieval music, which is amply reflected in some of his works. Of the two concertos in which Respighi drew on ancient musical forms, specifically Gregorian chant, it is the Concerto Gregoriano for violin and orchestra which remains today the single success of his in the concerto genre.
The other work, which has been recorded on this album, Concerto in modo misolido (Concerto in the Mixolydian Mode) is a homage to traditional church plainchant. The mixolydian mode, incidentally, is the scale of G major on the white keys, with F natural instead of F sharp on the seventh degree.
With the opening passage based on the Introit for the Mass of Ascension Day Viri Galilaei, quid admiramini, aspicientes in caelum ? (Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ?), Scherbakov immediately establishes a mood of chamber-like contemplation and introspection well suited to the modal scale idiom.
The orchestra is very much the supporting cast, intelligently and unobtrusively provided by Griffiths and the Slovak symphonists. The passages of sparseness are delightfully crafted, building up to an impressive soundscape that reminds one of Debussy’s La Cathédrale engloute of Ys, replete with chants and tolling bells.
The middle movement is set after a Gregorian melody, taken more briskly rather than the indicated Lento. Nevertheless, the lyricism unfolds with great feeling and poetry: Scherbakov is a convincing exponent here. While these are not the sublimal slow passages of Beethoven or Chopin, in his hands he gives Respighi a convincingly heartfelt working out of the music.
The second movement heads directly into the third, which is based on a Passacaglia of eighteen thematic variations. The music here is developed with great drama by Griffiths, comfortably switching between moods and phases between each minute to the next. Scherbakov (left) plays with flair aplenty – and given the technical difficulty of the pianist’s part, it is sobering to consider that Respighi – a professional string player by training – wrote this part for himself and performed it at its premiere.
The music of Respighi can, perhaps, be placed into two general groups: a more popular set of music which is colourfully programmatic, with fairly articulate development and invention, and a second group of melting-pot eclectism. The Concerto in modo misolido can be said to be in the former group, but the Concerto a cinque is firmly in the latter.
The Concerto a cinque is a much later work, from 1933, for solo oboe, trumpet, violin, double bass and piano, with strings. Undoubtedly this is an unusual, if not ambitious, combination of instruments – but it is hardly different from the manner of a baroque multiple concerto. Ever the neo-classicist, Respighi here elects to give the music a more modern treatment, opening with short, punctuative phrases in establishing the home key (D minor).
There is much interplay of dotted notes between soli groups of instruments and the orchestra in first movement. But it is the second movement in which each of the instruments get solo sections to themselves. Jarolím Ruzicka, as violin solo, has a prominent part, setting the introspective mood after the preceding oboe which opens the movement.
The piano does not even enter till about halfway through. But Scherbakov makes the most of his slice of the limelight, playing with much beauty and gently leading the music into the middle section with oboe. It is Ruzicka’s ravishing violin that brings us back to the gravitas of the opening with some sublime bowing.
Juraj Bartos on trumpet and Scherbakov together propel the final movement with some fervour. There is a passage of great agitation in which the trumpet sounds strained on the top note. Melodically, this is not very interesting concerto material, with sparse thematic development and sounding more improvisational than it really is.
But here it receives a dedicated performance from the soloists, even if they are travelling a path paved more with good intentions than actual insights. The veteran Naxos ensemble, the Capella Istropolitana, under Ewald Daniel, provides satisfactory accompaniment – but in the last, not as convincing as Griffiths and the SRSO-B in the Concerto misolido.
Here we find two interesting and disparate works by the same composer, given a serviceable accounts by the same pianist. While the spirit of medieval inspiration is never far from the surface, the more important insight is the essence of Respighi’s multifarious – some might say schizophrenic – agglomerate of compositional style.
An intelligent coupling, then, and a much-needed alternative at budget price, but these sophisticated works could have had more compelling advocacy. It is certainly worth a listen at this price and collectors who enjoy Respighi need not hesitate.
In Singapore, Naxos discs can be found or ordered from Sing Discs (Raffles City), HMV (The Heeren, City Link) or Tower Records (Suntec City, Pacific Plaza).
Benjamin Chee usually hangs around in music stores in the Yardumain to Zumsteeg section, ocasionally moving and startling inattentive browsers.
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788: 6.11..2000 ©Benjamin Chee
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